Re: New Linux 4word

On Sat, 9 Apr 2005, Albert van der Horst wrote:

> There is no attempt from Chucks side to systematically
> develop colorforth such that it is portable.

And you are arguing there should be? I'd much rather see Chuck designing 
chips then playing PC boot technician.

> This is a job left to the reader. We have had little success
> to date, but I admit it is hard.
> It starts from an analysis what is guaranteed to work on a
> PC. A boot floppy from my DOS 3.2 8086 Toshiba still boots
> my Celeron laptop.
> By the way, I have done a booting Forth too, and the reports from what
> hardware it failed on and what not, were not of the slightest help.
> (This is a booting Forth that runs in protected mode.)
>

Again if you have a strategy that is successful, more power to you. 
Perhaps you can let us all in on the secret of what is guaranteed to work.

>> As for an "official glossary", I am not sure what you mean.
>> What would make it "official"? Quite early on a glossary was
>> published[1], which anyone is free to contribute to.
>
> It is official if it is recognized by the majority of color
> forth users as having documented the functionality of some
> identified Forth version that can be used as a starting point
> for further development. It is a fixed point from which
> changes are documented. Even if that is Howerd's version and
> you have got a newer colorforth from Chuck the recognision
> makes it official. You will be asked what the difference are
> and you can give a meaningful answer.

I wonder if you really care what practice is recongnized by the majority 
of colorForth users.

>> What this sugests to me is that you have not seriously
>> studied colorForth, or if you have, you reject its
>> principles. As Chuck states clearly[2]:
>
> Maybe I should have said: there is no Metacompiler without
> assembler (unless you are willing to use machinecode directly.)
>
> If you think `` cd45 2,'' is nice, you are beyond hope.
> Do you really think Chuck likes this, or that it is considered the
> god-given fundament of colorforth? As Jeff has pointed out,
> Chuck has always used an assembler in this circumstance.
> Now he deviates for good reason, and it is related to the Pentium.
> Chucks analysis is : "machine code, because the alternative
> is worse".

So you are saying Jeff's anecdote carries more weight than Chuck's own 
words, his clearly outlined design philosphy. I think you are beyond hope.

> But IMO my assembler tips the balance.
>
> <SNIP>

You snip the most important part of my message, I wonder if you even 
bothered to read it or understand it.


>> The key word here is 'factor', if you write 13 blocks of
>> code and then force these 13 blocks onto colorForth after
>> the fact, clearly what you have done has nothing to do with
>> the word 'factor' as Forth programmers understand it.
>
> If you don't understand that a full Pentium assembler in 13 screens
> must be a marvellous feat of factoring, even without looking at the
> source, you are not much of a Forth programmer (or you have no idea
> what the Pentium is like).
>

If the specification is write a "full Pentium assembler", then you have 
done an adequate job. colorForth contains no such specification.

> Should an assembler  of the postit fixup principle
> be accepted  for colorforth, that is a far cry from 'forcing'
> upon. It would be a combination of reimplementing the postit-fixup
> principle in colorforth and copying some of the tables
> for the opcodes. Probably not those of the floating point.
> Then the names must be revised, because it uses characters
> not present in colorforth.

You want acceptence before you have done any reimplementation, before you 
have done any revision, again this has nothing do with factoring. It has 
everything to do with forcing your own subjective view onto the colorForth 
community.

Mark